Window of Normalization

A Musical and Photographic Exposition Created Solely with Sounds and Images Captured from Live Television

-Mitchel Davidovitz-

“The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to

the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to

inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will

integrate them into institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of

concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role

requires systematic propaganda”

-Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman (2002:1)

Background

Window of Normalization is an exploration of the current televised mass media

system in the United States. Between July 31 and August 8, 2013, I watched 34 hours of

live television, the average number of hours an American watches per week (Nielson

2013). I viewed a wide range of programming on many different stations. During this

time, I recorded the audio and captured over 6,500 still images. In an attempt to expose

which values, beliefs, and codes of behavior are currently being normalized via

television, I recomposed the sounds into a musical composition and combined the images

into grids.

Research / Program Notes

While the main portion of my project is found in the artistic creations, I have also

authored a 25-page research paper containing detailed program notes about the themes

touched upon in the works. Much of the research focused on Cultivation Theory, a highly

notable theory of mass media and communication, that argues the more an individual

watches television, the more likely they are to perceive television as an accurate

representation of society and the world. Despite criticisms of the theory, many studies

have led to positive correlations and important findings (Riddle 2010:156).

Cultivation can facilitate an authority’s control by creating consent through a

processes of normalizing ideologies, values, groups, and institutions. If the populace

accepts what is presented on television as normal parts of society, the authority does not

need to use force on the passive and accepting populace. Chomsky and Herman claim

that this not necessarily achieved through conspiracy, but rather the “preselection of

right-thinking people, internalized preconceptions, and the adaptation of personnel to the

constraints of ownership, organization, market, and political power” (2002:lx).  Window

of Normalization seeks to provide evidence that this is what is currently occurring on

American television.

Grids

The visual piece was created in a curatorial and documentary style. Of the more

than 6,500 exposures taken of actual television screens with a digital camera, 397 were

selected and organized into twelve grids of various themes. Minimally processed, the

only changes to the exposures were utilizations of different cropping to highlight certain

aspects of the frame and slight color corrections to help clarify the images. The printed

versions are archival pigment prints sized two feet tall by varying lengths, the largest

being two feet by nine feet [See Appendix #14 for a reference to the actual size of each

individual image within the grids]. The grids allow the viewer to closely explore

individual images, while also enabling them to step back and notice a cohesive pattern of

indoctrination.

The grids span a wide variety of subjects and themes. Some grids feature violent

and emotionally potent oversimplifications, including the grids Explosions [See

Appendix #2] and Threats [See Appendix #3]. The remedies to these dangers that are

presented on TV, which serve obvious authoritarian functions and legitimize the state, are

captured in the grids Armed Domestic Security [See Appendix #4] and Military [See

Appendix #5].

Studies have concluded that when “vivid” violence is viewed often on television,

viewers are led to believe in increased estimates of crime and violence in the real world

(Riddle 2010:155). One study found that heavy viewers of television consider police to

be more essential to society than non-heavy viewers (Özer 2011:187). This is a prime

example of cultivation that promotes authority: watching violence on television cultivates

a belief that crime and violence are commonplace in the real world. That same viewer,

now concerned about all the threats and dangers in the world, is more likely to believe

that they are in need of a protector, such as a police force or military.

While those two previously mentioned grids present American forces interacting

with and fighting domestic and foreign populations, the grid Prisons [See Appendix #6]

depicts the power they have in detaining and imprisoning said populations. American

Flags [See Appendix #7] highlights the large quantity of flags shown on television,

which can aid in the creation of a subordinate populace (Shanafelt 2008:16). The grid

Surveillance [See Appendix #8] presents images that expose how the erosion of privacy

rights is normalized on television (Hedges 2009:37, Cavender and Fishman 1998:91-92).

Other grids include White People Smiling [See Appendix #9], Heterosexual

Couples [See Appendix #10], Alcohol [See Appendix #11], and Currency [See Appendix

#12]. The final grid is entitled Television [See Appendix #13], which presents a series of

images depicting televisions and people watching them.

Music

As with the images, sounds were selected and organized into various categories

based on topics and sonic qualities. Where the music diverts is in the process of creation

and presentation. The sounds were recomposed into a six-movement musical composition

that spans fifteen minutes in length [See Appendix #1]. Mimicking the style in which

television is itself presented, the music composition is quite intense and rapidly paced

throughout most of the movements. Like television, there is hardly any silence and it does

not permit any room for discussion while the viewer receives information.

While some of the sounds are presented exactly as they were recorded, many are

layered and processed with a wide range of filters and effects. The manipulations serve a

different purpose in each case. Some sounds are so heavily processed that they are

completely unrecognizable from the original, while others are subtlety adjusted to help

convey an idea. This approach, which allows for more artistic liberty than the grids,

presents patterns in such a way that more scientific and documentary methods are likely

incapable of achieving.

You’re Just Supposed to Listen and Say Yes, the first movement of the musical

composition, highlights elements of control. This section references that television itself

is controlled by a select few powerful interests, as well as its power to cultivate ideas and

beliefs in the minds of viewers.

The second movement, entitled Act Normal provides an example of what Chris

Hedges calls a “Peter Pan culture,” one that “turns alienation and anxiety into cheerful

conformity” (Hedges 2009:190). The movement features commercials for happy pills and

a radio station that suggests you should “listen while you work” as solutions to social

dysphoria and anxiety. In so doing, it promotes hegemonic control by preventing civil

unrest.

Woman Power, the third movement, touch upon sexism and consumerism. It

features the classic Broadway song Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend played on top of a

sexist rant taken from an infomercial selling jewelry. The section transitions into the

fourth movement entitled Bad Bra Day, which contains dialogue from a bra infomercial

depicting painful bra experiences backed by intense and trite music. Eventually, there is

an announcement from the commercial that “the war is over” now that someone is

wearing the bra that is being sold. This movement exposes the normalization of war and

physical violence while also trivializing and masking their definitions.

The fifth movement is entitled 24/7 Professional Monitoring. The music begins

with a buildup of news anchors discussing terrorists and 9/11. It transitions to the

juxtaposition of a commercial selling a home security system that offers “24/7

professional monitoring” interrupted by news anchors describing various accounts of

domestic surveillance.

It’s the “Entertainment” that Matters is the sixth and final movement. It contains

audio of a pastor’s speech that has been recontextualized to refer to television in an

almost God-like manner. This creates a comparison between the ways that television and

religion are used to control the masses. The dialogue transitions into an ever-deteriorating

loop of a woman proclaiming that “in the end, it’s the entertainment that matters.”

Conclusions

Window of Normalization presents many of the values, beliefs, and codes of

behavior that are presented on television. It exposes that they overwhelmingly benefit

power structures and authority. The project allows the audience to reflect on the current

state of the televised mass media system by arming and empowering them with a new

perspective and knowledge.

Bibliography Cavender, Gray, and Mark Fishman. 1998. Entertaining Crime: Television Reality Programs. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Chomsky, Noam, and Edward S. Herman. 2002. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books. Hedges, Chris. 2009. Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. New York: Nation Books. Nielsen. 2013. The Cross-Platform Report: How Viewers Watch Time-Shifted Programming. Electronic document, http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/newswire/2013/the-cross-platform-report-how-viewers-watch-time-shifted-programming.html, accessed February 11, 2014. Özer, Ömer. 2011. Cultivation Theory and Hegemony: A Research From Turkey on Cultivational Role of Television. Informatol 44:187-192.

Riddle, Karyn. 2010. Always on My Mind: Exploring How Frequent, Recent, and Vivid Television Portrayals Are Used in the Formation of Social Reality Judgments. Media Psychology 13:155–179. Shanafelt, Robert. 2008. The Nature of Flag Power: How Flags Entail Dominance, Subordination, and Social Solidarity. Politics and the Life Sciences 27(2):13-27.

Appendix

Other appendix items included in e-mail attachment

1: Window of Normalization Music

Track List 1: You’re Just Supposed to Listen and Say Yes

2: Act Normal

3: Woman Power / Bad Bra Day

4: 24/7 Professional Monitoring

5: It’s the “Entertainment” that Matters